Land Rover Series 2

The Series 2 Land Rovers
were pioneers, trailblazers and workhorses of the Australian Armed
Forces with all three services of the Australian Defence Force
utilising their services. The largest operator by far was the
Australian Army. Their Land Rovers were bespoke vehicles for the
Army, from the 88 inch Command Recon with very few changes from a
standard civilian vehicle, through to the Ambulance and Workshop
vehicles which had unique chassis and bodywork components.

AMF SERIES 2 CONTRACT

According to archives, a series of vehicle
tests were carried out to select new vehicles for the AMF in
1958 and 1959. The Army Design Establishment (ADE) went to
work to prepare reports helping to determine which vehicle
manufacturer received the supply contracts. The ADE files
sighted to date refer to "Project V50" and/or "Combined
Services Vehicle Specification N° 3 of 19 June 1957." The
dates of the actual vehicle tests date from 6 May 1958 and the
ADE evaluative test process went on for over 12 months; eg.,
the Jeep CJ-3 report (finalised and submitted by the ADE OC to
AMF HQ) is dated June 12th 1959. The tested environments were
abbreviated as "hot-wet" and "hot-dry". Those references imply
the summer of December 1958 through February 1959 as being the
make-or-break trial when all the vehicle company exec's must
have been more than a little nervous. Big money was at stake.

Land-Rover's Solihull factory began turning
out the new "Series 2" (or "Series II") design in April 1958,
ten years to the month after the first public display of the
Land-Rover in Amsterdam 1948. The new model Series 2 of April
1958 had a new wider style/look (designed by Rover's David
Bache) and a new engine in the case of the long wheelbase
units.

Information from a Australian Military
Equipment Profiles publication lists the Series 2
"Australian Army appraisal unit" as chassis number 142800001 -
ie '142' is code for 'RHD Export' assembled at Solihull ('143'
code would be RHD CKD) and '8' refers to the year 1958, s/n is
number '00001'. This Land-Rover was rushed from the Solihull
assembly line and transported by ship to Australia -ASAP- to
be tested along with other 4x4 ¼ ton vehicles by the
Australian Design Establishment.

Allowing for six weeks on the sea, that
Series 2, the first ever seen in Australia, arrived in Port
Melbourne around the end of May 1958 and was handed over for
testing as soon as possible - by May 1958 the "Project V50
tests" had already been underway for a month at the ADE Trials and Proving Wing (TPW)
bush circuit near Melbourne. The ADE report for Test
Instruction TI 1762 are available on the below page

This 1958 'Regular' 88inch 4 cylinder Land-Rover, ARN 107-671
(Commonwealth plates C67999), with it's English canvas top and
transparent rear windows, went on to win the AMF testing
contest between five manufacturers for the supply contract.
Rover Australia was also obligated to follow some mods and
Australian manufacturing content required by the Government. (More
details at ANZACsteel website). The delivery of CKD
Series 2 ¼ ton 88inch and 109inch units from Solihull UK
followed quickly: the earliest arrivals were the 88inch short
wheelbase units, as per Contract number 104337 (issued in
November 1958). They are all dated 16.12.58 and were delivered
'in-service' in early 1959.

The earliest 'Long' 109inch units to arrive in Australia
later on (newly released as a Land-Rover model world-wide)
were fitted as field ambulances according to the latest
research from Mike Cecil (author of Australian Military
Equipment Profiles):

The success of the Ambulance prototypes led to further
variants being built and the increase of orders for
Land-Rovers. The variants to follow were the mobile wireless
stations (F.F.W.), the Fire Fighting appliances and the Field
Workshop units.

How many Series 2 units were supplied to the AMF? Well, the Land-Rover
Australia 50th Anniversary booklet and the LRA website
quotes a Series 2 total of 1,150 units. The same total was
reported in the October 1999 issue of Land Rover Magazine.
The December 1988 issue of Overlander magazine states
that the first Series 2 88inch was delivered in March 1959 and
that the first Series 2 109inch was delivered in November
1959.

However, Australian Army Registration -provisional- data from
the B.B.B. shows that:

A sum total of 1,841 Series 2 Land-Rovers
'enlisted' with the Australian Army according to our ARN
records as at 25.07.2013.